Tales of the Dying Earth (68 page)

Cugel said smoothly: "My explanation confused Dame Mupo. Recently we have noticed vagrants and vagabonds among the columns. We warned them off, and then, to confuse would-be thieves, we altered our numerative system. In practice, nothing is changed; you need not concern yourself."

Dame Fetish departed, dubiously shaking her head. She paused by the columns and looked them up and down for several minutes, then returned to the village.

Nisbet said nervously: "I hope no one else comes asking questions. Your answers are remarkable and confuse even me, but others may be more incisive."

"I imagine that we have heard the last of the matter,'' said Cugel, and the two returned to work.

During the early afternoon Dame Sequorce came out from the village with several of her sisters. They paused several minutes by the columns, then continued to the quarry.

Nisbet said in a quavering voice: "Cugel, I appoint you spokesman for the concern. Be good enough to mollify these ladies."

"I will do my best," said Cugel. He went out to confront Dame Sequorce. "Your segments are not yet ready. You may return in a week."

Dame Sequorce seemed not to hear. She turned her pale blue eyes around the quarry. "Where is Nisbet?"

"Nisbet is indisposed. Our delivery time is once again a month or more, since we must quarry more white-stone. I am sorry, but we cannot oblige you any sooner."

Dame Sequorce fixed her gaze full upon Cugel. "Where are the 'Ones' and 'Twos'? Why are they gone so that the 'Threes' rest on the ground?"

Cugel feigned surprise. "Is this really the case? Very odd. Still, nothing is permanent and the 'Ones' and 'Twos' may have crumbled into dust."

"There is no evidence of such dust around the base of the columns."

Cugel shrugged. "Since the columns remain at their relative elevations, no great damage has been done."

From the back of the quarry one of Dame Sequorce's sisters came running. "We have found a pile of segments hidden behind some rocks, and all are 'Twos'!"

Dame Sequorce gave Cugel a brief side-glance, then turned and strode back to the village, followed by her sisters.

Cugel went glumly into Nisbet's abode. Nisbet had been listening from behind the door. "All things change," said Cugel. "It is now time to leave."

Nisbet jumped back in shock. "'Leave'? My wonderful house? My antiques and famous bibelots? That is unthinkable!"

"I fear That Dame Sequorce will not stop with simple criticism. Remember her dealings with your beard?"

"I do indeed, and this time I will defend myself!" Nisbet went to a cabinet and selected a sword. "Here is the finest steel of Old Kharai! Here, Cugel! Another blade of equal worth in a splendid harness! Wear it with pride!"

Cugel buckled the ancient sword about his waist. "Defiance is all very well but a whole skin is better. I suggest that we prepare for all eventualities."

"Never!" cried Nisbet in a passion. "I will stand in the doorway of my house and the first to attack shall feel the edge of my sword!"

"They will stand back and throw rocks," said Cugel.

Nisbet paid no heed and went to the doorway. Cugel reflected a moment, then carried various goods to the wagon left by the Maot traders: food, wine, rugs, garments. In his pouch he placed a pot of ossip boot-dressing, after first anointing his boots, and two handfuls of terces from Nisbet's urn. A second pot of boot dressing he tossed upon the wagon.

Cugel was interrupted in his work by an excited call from Nisbet. "Cugel! They are coming, at speed! They are like an army of raging beasts!"

Cugel went to the door and surveyed the oncoming women. "You and your valiant sword may deter this horde from the front door, but they will merely enter from the back. I suggest withdrawal. The wagon is ready."

Reluctantly Nisbet went to the wagon. He looked over Cugel's preparations. "Where are my terces? You load boot dressing but no terces! Is that sensible?"

"The boot dressing, and not your amulet, defies gravity. The urn was too heavy to carry."

Nisbet nevertheless ran inside and staggered out with his urn, spilling terces behind him.

The women were now close at hand. Observing the wagon they emitted a great roar of wrath. "Villains, halt!" cried Dame Sequorce. Neither Cugel nor Nisbet heeded her command.

Nisbet brought his urn to the wagon and loaded it with the other goods but when he tried to climb to the seat he fell, and Cugel had to lift him aboard. Cugel kicked the wagon and gave it a great push so that it floated away into the air, but when Cugel tried to jump upon the wagon, he lost his footing and fell to the ground.

There was no time for a second attempt; the women were upon him. Holding sword and pouch so that they did not impede his running, Cugel took to his heels, with the fastest of the women in pursuit.

After half a mile the women gave up the chase and Cugel paused to catch his breath. Already smoke was rising from Nisbet's abode, as the mob wreaked vicarious vengeance on Nisbet. On top of their columns the men stood up, the better to observe events. High in the sky the wagon drifted eastward on the wind, with Nisbet peering over the side.

Cugel heaved a sigh. Slinging the pouch over his shoulder, he set off to the south toward Port Perdusz.

SETTING his course by the bloated red sun, Cugel journeyed south across an arid wasteland. Small boulders cast black shadows; an occasional stand-back bush, with leaves like fleshy pink ear-lobes, thrust thorns toward Cugel as he passed.

The horizons were blurred behind haze the color of watered carmine. No human artifact could be seen, nor any living creature, except on a single occasion when, far to the south, Cugel noted a pelgrane of impressive wingspan flying lazily from west to east. Cugel flung himself flat and lay motionless until the creature had disappeared into the eastern haze. Cugel then picked himself up, dusted off his garments and proceeded south.

The pallid soil reflected heat. Cugel paused to fan his face with his hat. In so doing he brushed his wrist lightly across 'Spatterlight', the sky-breaker scale which Cugel now used as a hat ornament. The contact caused an instant searing pain and a sucking sensation as if 'Spatterlight' were anxious to engulf the whole of Cugel's arm and perhaps more. Cugel looked askance at the ornament: his wrist had barely made contact! 'Spatter-light' was not an object to be dealt with casually.

Cugel gingerly replaced the hat on his head and continued south at speed, hoping to come upon shelter before nightfall. He moved at so hasty a gait that he almost blundered over the brink of a sink-hole fifty yards wide. He stopped short with one leg poised over the abyss, with a black tarn a hundred feet below. For a few breathless seconds Cugel tottered in a state of disequilibrium, then lurched back to safety.

After catching his breath, Cugel proceeded with greater caution. The sink-hole, he soon discovered, was not an isolated case. Over the next few miles he came upon others of greater or less dimension and few gave warning of their presence; there was only an instant brink and a far drop into dark water.

At larger sink-holes dark blue weeping-willow trees hung over the edge, half-concealing rows of peculiar habitations. These were narrow and tall, like boxes piled one on the other. There seemed no concern for precision and parts of the structures rested on the branches of the weeping-willows.

The folk who had built the tree-towers were difficult to see among the shadows of the foliage; Cugel glimpsed them as they darted across their queer little windows, and several times he thought to see them slipping into the sink-hole on slides polished from the native limestone. Their stature was that of a small human being or a boy, though their countenances suggested a peculiar hybridization of reptile, stalking bang-nose beetle and miniature gid. To cover their gray-green pelts they wore flounced belly-guards of pale fiber, and caps with black ear-flaps, apparently fabricated from human skulls.

The aspect of these folk gave Cugel little hope of obtaining hospitality, and indeed prompted him to slip away before they decided to pursue him.

As the sun sank low, Cugel became ever more nervous. If he tried to travel by night, he would certainly blunder into a sink-hole. If he thought to wrap himself in his cloak and sleep in the open, he thereupon became prey for visps, which stood nine feet tall and looked across the night through luminous pink eyes, and traced the scent of flesh by means of two flexible proboscises growing from each side of their scalp-crest.

The lower limb of the sun touched the horizon. In desperation Cugel tore up branches of brittlebush, whose wood made excellent torches. He approached a sink-hole fringed with weeping-willows and selected a tree-tower somewhat isolated from the others. As he drew near, he glimpsed weasel-like shapes darting back and forth in front of the windows.

Cugel drew his sword and pounded on the planked wall. "It is I, Cugel!" he roared. "I am king of this wretched wasteland! How is it that none of you have paid your fees?"

From within came a chorus of howling high-pitched invective, and filth was flung from the windows. Cugel drew back and set one of the branches afire. From the windows came piercing cries of outrage, and certain residents of the tree-tower ran out into the branches of the weeping-willow and slid down into the water of the sink-hole.

Cugel kept a wary eye to the rear, so that none of the tree-tower folk should creep up from behind to jump on his back. He pounded again on the walls. "Enough of your slops and filth! Pay over a thousand terces at once, or vacate the premises!"

From within nothing could be heard but hisses and whispers. Watching in all directions, Cugel circled the structure. He found a door and thrust in the torch, to discover a work-room, with a polished limestone bench across one wall, on which rested several alabaster ewers, cups and trenchers. There was neither hearth nor stove; evidently the tree-tower folk shunned the use of fire; nor was there communication with the upper levels, by means of ladders, traps or stairs.

Cugel left his branches of brittlebush and his burning torch on the dirt floor and went to gather more fuel. In the plum-colored afterglow he collected four armloads of branches and brought them to the tree-tower; during the final load he heard at frighteningly close hand the melancholy call of a visp.

Cugel hurriedly returned to the tree-tower. Once again the residents issued furious protests, and strident screams echoed back and forth across the sink-hole.

"Vermin, settle down!" called Cugel. "I am about to take my rest."

His commands went unheeded. Cugel brought his torch from the work-room and flourished it in all directions. The tumult instantly died.

Cugel returned into the work-room and blocked the door with the limestone slab, which he propped into place with a pole. He lay his fire so that it would burn slowly, one brand at a time. Wrapping himself in his cloak, he composed himself to sleep.

During the night he awoke at intervals to tend his fire, to listen and to peer through a crack out across the sink-hole, but all was quiet save for the calls of wandering visps.

In the morning Cugel aroused himself with the coming of sunlight. Through cracks he scrutinized the area outside the tree-tower, but nothing seemed amiss, and no sound could be heard.

Cugel pursed his lips in dubious reflection. He would have been reassured by some more or less overt demonstration of hostility. The quiet was over-innocent.

Cugel asked himself: "How, in similar case, would I punish an interloper as bold as myself?"

And next: "Why risk fire or sword?"

Then: "I would plan a horrid surprise."

Finally: "Logic leads to the concept of a snare. So then: let us see what there is to be seen." Cugel removed the limestone slab from the door. All was quiet: even more quiet than before. The entire sink-hole held its breath. Cugel studied the ground before the tree-tower. He looked right and left, to discover cords dangling from the branches of the tree. The ground before the door had been sprinkled with a suspicious amount of soil, which failed to conceal altogether the outlines of a net.

Cugel picked up the limestone slab and thrust it at the back wall. The planks, secured with pegs and withes, broke loose; Cugel jumped through the hole and was away, with cries of outrage and disappointment ringing after him.

Cugel continued to march south, toward far hills which showed as shadows behind the haze. At noon he came upon an abandoned farmstead beside a small river, where he gratefully sated his thirst. In an old orchard he found an ancient crab-apple tree heavy with fruit. He ate to satiation and filled his pouch.

As Cugel set off on his way he noticed a stone tablet with a weathered inscription:

A cold draught seemed to touch the back of Cugel’s neck, and he looked uneasily over his shoulder. "Here is a place to be avoided," he told himself, and set off at full stride of his long legs.